it was
over
50 years ago,
and i was doing an open mic
with the local literary group,
and
they were all
very serious and artsy
and their poems
were precious and hammered at
and careful
as were
their clothes and
the way they walked and talked
and as
far as i can tell
it was the same sad crowd,
week after week,
reading the same sad poems
over and over again,
when
in walks me
with my long-hair'd,
beautiful future wife and a guitar player.
it felt like
everyone turned around
to see who this new guy was,
and the guy
up on the stage
stopped what he was doing,
and with a
pretty good ad lib
he looked at us and looked
at his partisan crowd and said:
look who
just walked in...
Peter, Paul and Mary!
that
was funny...
but
it stung
and it stuck
and it taught me
something that i learned
right then and there and never forgot.
that was
more than 50 years ago,
and
as far
as i can tell,
i'm still the only
one still on the scene,
still doing the deed.
and to
quote Terry Malloy
in ON THE WATERFRONT,
all they ever got
was “a one way ticket to Palookaville.”
he said:
if only
it wasn’t all
a struggle to make ends meet.
i wish
there was just
one day when i didn’t
have to worry about bills or
my job or how i'm gonna get thru
the next couple weeks.
i looked at him.
he was young.
he
didn’t know
that things like that never end.
they never
completely go away.
they’re
always there.
hiding.
and the secret
to it all
is to go
and make a life around them.
Bukowski’s property
this poem
isn’t mine these
thoughts aren’t
mine these
sentences aren’t
mine these
cadences
aren’t
mine
these
lines aren’t
mine.
nothing
i do
or think
or write
is mine.
it’s all
filtered down
through you
Mr. Bukowski...
and i wish
you’d
come here
and
take it
back.
Gwen said
her name meant
face of god,
or something like that.
i don’t know
where or how
she got that idea,
but she stuck with it,
right
to the end,
right up
to the time
when she went
face to face with a guy
who swore
his name
meant:
he who devours
ham on rye.
i've been shit on...
this time
by a
bird
whose aim
was more direct,
on target
and effective
than any of
the critics
who
dislike me,
my poems,
my attitude,
my way of writing
or
just
my way of
seeing things.
in
fact,
this bird
should write
a book
and call it:
“John Yamrus is in my sights...lean,
mean and as i see him”...
it’s
a little long
for the title of a book,
but,
then,
this was
one
hell of a bird.
the apartment
had
no heat,
no hot water
and no back door.
to
make it
interesting
two strippers
lived upstairs,
the problem was
they were nice girls.
broke,
just like us.
we ate
boiled noodles
and
very little else.
the
poems
came hard.
“think of this
as just
another part of your job”,
she said, as she
arranged the lights
around me...
and my shirt...
she took great care
to make sure
the shirt
was looking just right.
“if we don’t
make you look good,
we don’t
get the posters up,
and if we don’t
get the posters up,
nobody shows, and
the whole thing’s
a great big waste of time. this is
just another part of
your job.”
god,
right then and there
i hated my job.
i wished to hell
i was back there,
in my room,
with the shades pulled
tight
and the
tv on.
this job was
something i never wanted.
the only job
i ever really
needed...
that made
any kind of sense...
was
this room,
these
poems,
and
you.
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